China-Japan armed clashes in the East China Sea loom closer

From Hong Kong to Taipei, from Canberra to Manila, from London to Washington, newspaper headlines from around the world are warning that renewed tensions between China and Japan, two of the top three world economies, are at risk to become an all-out hot war.

Headlines like these:

"Geopolitical risk: Iran is out, China and Japan are in."

"U.S. backs Japan as tensions soar on Beijing's air defense zone over East China Sea."

"China sends aircraft carrier to South China Sea."

"Washington could be drawn into dispute as Japan and China square up over uninhabited islands."

"Asia now more prone to conflict than ever."

On Nov. 23, China's Ministry of National Defense unilaterally imposed an "Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)" that covers most of the East China Sea, including a group of uninhabited islands (known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China) that have been the subject of heightened tensions between China and Japan in recent years.

The Chinese government asserted that any aircraft in the declared ADIZ must report their flight plans to Beijing, maintain two-way radio and clearly mark their nationalities on the aircraft. And the Chinese Ministry of National Defense also vowed to "adopt defensive emergency measures to respond to aircraft that do not cooperate in the identification or refuse to follow the instructions."

China's new air defense zone declaration has incensed Japan - the Chinese map and coordinates of the ADIZ broadly overlap airspace designated by Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Japanese parliament that Beijing's move "was a profoundly dangerous act." Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida immediately called China's unilateral declaration "totally unacceptable" and slammed Beijing's announcement as "no validity whatsoever." Japan would "never accept the move," asserted Kishida, "it is a one-sided action which leads us to assume the danger of unpredictable events on the spot."

On Nov. 24, the day after Beijing's declaration, China conducted two aerial patrols over the East China Sea, and Japan's Air Self-Defense Force immediately dispatched F-15 fighter jets to intercept the Chinese aircraft.

In the coming conflict, Washington views the expansion of the Chinese air defense zone into the East China Sea as a "provocative threat to regional stability" and is firmly on Tokyo's side. U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry have called Beijing's declaration "a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region" and warned that China's "escalatory action will only increase tensions in the region and create risks of an incident."

In defiance of the new Chinese air defense rules, on Nov. 26, the Pentagon sent in a pair of B-52 bombers to fly over China's "newly established" air defense zone, without notifying Beijing. "When we fly into this aerial zone," Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters, "we will not register a flight plan, we will not identify our transponder, our radio frequency and our logo. Those are the things that the Chinese have publicly said are a requirement, we will not in any way change how we conduct our operations as a result of this new policy."

Beijing's Nov. 23 air defense declaration marks one of the most serious escalations in heightened tensions between China and Japan in recent years. As Dhara Ranasinghe, senior writer for CNBC, writes, "Just as geopolitical risk showed signs of abating after Nov. 24 nuclear weapons deal with Iran, tensions between China and Japan over disputed islands have re-surfaced. At the moment if you look at the world, one of the striking features is that there aren't many tail risks out there. But with the China and Japan dispute, both sides are stubborn and this is one of the bigger geopolitical risks the world now faces."

China's assertive policy and Japan's readiness to push back against it have moved Asia's two largest economies one step closer to a military clash, albeit perhaps by accident rather than by design. At the same time, the Obama administration has vowed to defend Japan and stated specifically last year that these disputed islands in the East China Sea fall under the 1960 U.S.-Japan security treaty. As China-Japan armed conflicts loom closer, "the danger of the U.S. being drawn into lethal conflict with China over the Japan-China Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute," writes Stephen Harner of Forbes, "has just risen."

Dr. Xiaoxiong Yi is the director of Marietta College's China program.

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China-Japan armed clashes in the East China Sea loom closer

From Hong Kong to Taipei, from Canberra to Manila, from London to Washington, newspaper headlines from around the world are warning that renewed tensions between China and Japan, two of the top three